One of the policemen guarding the prison in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, Hidayat Ullah, said Tuesday that he and several colleagues jumped into an armored vehicle at the main gate of the prison to fight back when the attack started late Monday night.

But Ullah says militants fired a mortar or rocket-propelled grenade at the vehicle, killing two policemen and wounding him and two others.

Dera Ismail Khan's commissioner Mushtaq Jadoon says the militants killed over a dozen people, including six policemen, six Shiite Muslim prisoners and two civilians. He says authorities are searching for both the militants and the prisoners who escaped.

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